The accusation of two managers close to the shipowner for the sinking of the ‘Pitanxo’

The general director and the fleet manager, summoned at the National Court

Pesquerías Nores Marín has received more than 300,000 euros in public subsidies since the incident

At 6:30 UTC on February 15, 2022, twelve crew members of the fishing village of Pitanxo They had already spent at least two hours in a raft cracked on the ground, with the water at two degrees Celsius and under a thermal sensation of -17º.. Only two of them, the captain and his nephew – Juan Enrique Padín and Eduardo Rial – were wearing survival suits; only one, the pattern, was completely dry. At 6:30 UTC there were already bodies in the inflatable boat, while sailors like Samuel Koufie and William Arévalo were fighting to survive. William couldn’t.

At 6:30 a.m., when the radio beacon had already warned of the catastrophe, the ship’s owner answered a call from the National Rescue Coordination Center (CNCS). He assured that 22 people were on board. And he lied, because there were 24 who faced the fatal capsize of the fishing boat. The shipowner, Pesquerías Nores Marín, had delivered a false dispatch to the Maritime Captaincy of Vigo. According to this document, there was not lifesaving equipment for everyone on the ship. With the company already charged by the National Court, the investigating judge, Ismael Moreno, has cited in as investigated (charged) to two of its top managers: the general director, José Antonio Nores Rodríguez, and the head of Fleet, José Antonio Nores Ortega.

Pesquerías Nores, like Juan Enrique Padín, were already under investigation for the alleged commission of four crimes: 21 homicides due to serious recklessness, violation of workers’ rights, document falsification and cover-up. Although families of the victims – twelve bodies have never been found – also urged that Eduardo Rial be charged, the court has not granted this request to date.

Unlike the captain, who was rescued with “dry tennis shoes”; –as the ship’s crew warned Menduiña Two Beach to FARO–, Rial did have to jump into the water to get on the raft. Koufie, the third survivor, has argued both before the Civil Guard and in court that Padín did not give the order to abandon ship nor order, therefore, to wear the thermal suit. Sailors from the ship that rescued them, from the Moradiña shipowner, have also insisted that no mayday signal was sent from the command bridge of the Pitanxo. “He gave us seven versions of what had happened in half an hour.”

These same sources assured, also before the judge, that Padín asked them for “paper and pen.” to coordinate the story to be given to the authorities with Samuel Koufie and Eduardo Rial. So that they could draw this succession of events: that the engine stopped for no apparent reason, that the Pitanxo began to list to port, that the entire crew was called to go up to the bridge with thermal suits.

The one contributed by Koufie, and supported by the sailors of the Menduiña Two Beach and – indicatively – according to the expert evidence it is radically contrary: the engine did not fail, that it was Padín’s maneuver that caused a fatal list of the boat and that, with an intense entry of water and with the stability compromised by a sludge from the rig, drowned the Wärtsilä propulsion system. According to the Ghanaian sailor, He also received pressure from the shipowner company to support the boss’s story and remove any shadow of responsibility for the shipwreck.. Galician fishing has not suffered a sinking with so many victims, 21, since the Marbel in 1978.

In addition to having provided false information for the dispatch of the vessel, Pesquerías Nores also did not report that the Pitanxo It would have a twenty-fifth crew member on board when it left Vigo, with the (consummated) intention of transshipping it on the high seas. In the list of rescue equipment on the fishing boat there were only 22 vests.. Due to a reform to the freeboard deck, which added 16 tons of ballast to the keel, the ship should not have gone to work in ice formation areas either; She did it repeatedly since 2018. She also did not quarantine before leaving for the fishing ground despite having evacuated a COVID-positive crew member; Seven of the bodies recovered from the shipwreck had a high concentration of coronavirus.

The extensive list of irregularities, whether or not they ultimately have criminal repercussions, has not prevented the company from receiving public subsidies from different administrations. The last one is dated July 13, when 225,000 euros were received as “State aid for diesel consumption to fishing vessel and trap-owning companies for the year 2023.” It was direct help without compensation. In sum, since the shipwreck of the Villa de Pitanxo, Pesquerías Nores Marín has received direct aid of 304,015.22 euros, as recorded in the National Publicity System for Subsidies and Public Aid of the Ministry of Finance.